When leaving isn't an option but it is
by WafflesnRizzles
Summary: Based on the Tumblr prompt: "Imagine Emma and Regina spending an evening together and getting drunk because Hook did something stupid and Emma is sad..." A particularly sad and sweet SwanQueen oneshot.
_**A/N: This is my take on the below Tumblr 'prompt.'**_

 _ **Tumblr prompt:**_ _Imagine Emma and Regina spending an evening together and getting drunk because Hook did something stupid and Emma is sad and Regina is comforting her. They walk back to Regina's house,Emma wasted and Regina quiet tipsy. They go in and start undressing each other. The next morning Regina wakes up with Emma long gone and she looks at her bare body and notices the bite marks Emma left all over her and cries because she never wants those marks to dissapear but knows that Emma will alway choose Hook._

"Hi," came the small, sheepish greeting from the blonde on her doorstep. She was holding two bottles of wine, one red and one white, both mediocre at best. When Regina lets the blonde pass through her doorway, she sees the movie case sticking out of her back pocket. It's _Love Actually_. Again.

"What did he do this time?" Regina doesn't mean for it to be dry and unfriendly, but mention of the unwashed pirate always leaves a bad taste in her mouth. Maybe the pinot noir will help with that.

"It's stupid." And Regina knows it is because it always is. She has given up telling the blonde to give _him_ up. His past mistakes—both egregious and minor—have added up in her mind to a resounding 'leave his ass immediately,' but Emma is a Charming and is nothing but blind and foolish because of it.

Regina realizes she probably should reassure the blonde, so she offers her a half-smile and a wry quip: "It's likely more idiotic than a dwarf playing basketball, but by all means, do tell."

The comment brings a quivering smile to Emma's face, and Regina feels herself breathe a soft sigh of relief. Her coffee eyes scan over Emma for any signs of trauma (because that has happened one or two times before, but not enough for Emma to understand that it's _not okay_ ). Not seeing any, she moves over to grab the wine opener while Emma expertly opens the cabinet above the plates to retrieve two wine glasses. This certainly wasn't their first rodeo.

"He just…" Emma pauses to answer Regina's silent question of 'which bottle?' by pointing to the red. She doesn't actually care. She isn't really into wine, but Regina always was telling her that reds should be had at room temperature and whites should be chilled. Regina puts the white into her refrigerator to cool while handing Emma a glass. Emma takes an unreasonably large swig and continues.

"This is a bit TMI, but I planned this whole seduction thing—I even got a new set of…clothes—and he just brushed me off. Said 'the boys' texted him about a poker night. He didn't even comment on my…clothes." The words come out in a halted sort of rush. Emma had never had a friend to confide in before, especially about these sorts of matters. While it was relieving to have someone to unburden her up-and-down relationship with Hook upon, she never could quite get rid of the discomfort it brought her.

It likely had something to do with the probing chocolate eyes and soft hands on her arm or knee. Nobody—not her mother, not Hook, not Ruby—ever touched her like that.

They moved to their usual haunt, the sitting room. They would talk for a bit and eventually, when Emma was done pouring her soul out to Regina and was emotionally spent, would migrate over to the living room where Emma would wordlessly slide _Love Actually_ into the DVD player and they would slowly drift off to sleep.

Regina made sure not to place her hand on Emma's knee for once. "Emma, you are a beautiful woman. I'm sure Hook still sees that. He likely had prior plans." The words physically pained Regina to say.

They did every time, the Excuses. She used to tell Emma the Truth, that Hook wasn't good enough for her, that he didn't appreciate what he had. But that had only driven Emma away from her. Emma had refused to listen to her. And worse? She had refused to talk to Regina. She would shut her out for weeks at a time, every second its own unique brand of torture for the brunette.

So now she made the Excuses for the worthless pirate. Because, she justified, if the blonde was going to remain stubbornly with him, at least she would have Regina to come to when things inevitably went wrong. It was a different kind of torture than being without the blonde completely, but it was more of an ache than an acute pain. So there was that.

"No, it happened when we were…" Emma bobbed her head to indicate that they were in the middle of some sort of sexual activity. Regina wanted to voice her indignation ( _he answered his phone while you two were in the middle of making love?_ ). She wanted to shake the blonde and tell her how perfect she was. How Regina would never leave her like that. How she would cherish every moment the blonde chose to give her.

 _Pining_ , Mary Margaret calls it. She had confronted Regina about her feelings for Emma ages ago, had told her to _do_ something about it. But she hasn't and she won't, because Emma was not hers to take or claim. She was doomed to this unrequited longing in some magnificently devised plan from the divine to make her pay for all of her many, many sins.

It was Purgatory but it felt like Hell.

The first bottle of wine was already gone, swallowed gratefully in their prolonged moments of silence that were not unusual. It was not unwelcome silence at all: more palliative on the part of a certain brunette and brooding on the part of a certain blonde.

It worked for them.

The second bottle was barely chilled, but Regina opened it anyway, snagging a sip of the spicy Gewürtztraminer (she once dared Emma to pronounce it and laughed uproariously at the result) before bringing it back to the blonde in the sitting room.

Emma is lounging, one knee-high laced boot on the couch and glass of red wine to her lips. The liquid passes through her parted mouth and Regina is transfixed as it slides smoothly down the graceful column of the blonde's throat. Regina has to remind herself to breathe.

"Thinking about something?" Regina asks, taking the blonde's empty glass and replacing it with a full one.

"Yeah," the blonde breathes. "Contrary to popular thought, Mayor Mills, it's not just all hot air up here." She takes another sip, which is more of a desperate gulp, of her wine before placing the glass on the ground and suddenly sitting upright.

Regina eyes her with interest, but continues to sip delicately on her wine. Emma was flushed, her cheeks pink from the alcohol, and suddenly had an indefinable air about her. She was certainly tipsy, as Emma had consumed the entire first bottle save for Regina's one glass. But there was something….

"Is this not okay?" Emma asks suddenly, shimmying out of her red leather jacket and peeling off her white tank top.

It takes Regina a moment to remember to keep her eyes where appropriate, to breathe, and to open her mouth to speak. "I assume you're asking if your new lingerie is objectively appealing?"

She couldn't be asking if baring herself to Regina was okay because—because it _was_ and gods, it _wasn't_.

Emma was wearing a forest green lace corset that particularly emphasized her…assets in an undeniably appealing manner. Peeking from the top of her patented skintight jeans was the hint of a matching green garter belt.

Emma's head nods once, and Regina is certain that someone is messing with her senses. Had Emma suddenly magicked the air out of the room? Why was Regina's breathing suddenly far too rapid and too loud?

She forces herself to grind out, "It is a very attractive color on you, Miss Swan," which comes out far too low for her liking. She swears she sees Emma shiver.

"There's also…" Emma begins to say as she starts to unbutton her jeans. She stands up to shimmy them down off her hips just as Regina moves forward to stop her—

And then they're flush against one another and Regina's head starts to spin. Emma's chest is heaving. Her breasts are moving rhythmically, hypnotically, up and down a mere inch away from Regina. Her forest green eyes are darting from Regina's own and down to her lips and back up again in this confused, dawning sort of triangle that is incinerating the last shreds of Regina's resolve.

She wants to move forward to finally take Emma's lips for her own—

But that's just it. Emma is a taken woman and she will _not_ be that person.

When Emma surges forward, however, and gives to Regina what she herself would not dare to take, Regina falls completely undone.

Emma's lips on hers are pure ambrosia. Life-giving, life altering. Gods, she's been _released_ and caught all at the same time and it's like nothing she has never and will ever experience.

In no time her tongue is tracing Emma's thin, bowstring lips. In no time, they're parting for her. In no time, their tongues meet and she moans a sound ripped from her very soul. Her hands are clasping around the firm, soft material of Emma's corset and her fingers are ghosting across the naked strip between where it ends and Emma's jeans begin.

Her soft blonde curls are the next thing Regina's hands find. The painted red nails rake through the long tresses, blasphemously mussing them as they pull ever closer.

Short, blunt nails rake along the fabric of a conservative black dress. Also pulling closer, and Regina feels like maybe, _maybe_ this isn't all one-sided.

Emma pulls her pants down farther, laughing breathlessly as they are waylaid by her tall boots. She pulls gently away from Regina, gazing into her eyes for confirmation before giving her a half-smile and leaning down to unzip the boots. She does an awkward half-dance as she tries—and fails—to gracefully step out of the footwear, and Regina feels a strangled laugh claw its way up her throat.

It catches when she remembers that this lingerie, this Emma, is meant for someone else.

"Regina?" Emma asks. "Where'd you go?" Her hands move to Regina's, moving them to settle on the garter belt at Emma's hips.

 _Fuck_.

"I can't. You're with—" But Emma's lips are on hers again and it's ambrosia so maybe Regina isn't in purgatory anymore.

"Please," Emma mumbles, falling back against the couch cushions. And Regina can't deny her. Behind the want and lust is a quivering plea for validation, one that Regina won't let go unanswered. The blonde deserved to be worshipped and appreciated, two things she is well-equipped to provide.

Gods, Regina has so much to give her.

"Anything," Regina whispers, kissing down the glorious column of Emma's neck. She feels Emma whimper underneath her, and her body quivers in kind. She gets to the swell of Emma's breasts and contemplates doing away with the confining fabric they are—well, at least halfway—encased in.

As the corset is the reason for Emma and she getting in this position, she reasons that it likely should remain on. So instead, Regina moves around the silky fabric, nipping at the exposed flesh and using her hot breath and wet mouth to lave at the elusive pink nipples beneath it. Emma's short, panting breaths egg her on, and Regina becomes more drunk and hazy with each one of them.

She is melting into Emma, and she is sure she will never form quite together again.

"You are so perfect, Emma," Regina breathes, pausing in her ministrations to sear the words into the blonde with the sincerity of her look. Emma's breath puffs out in shock before her eyes harden in denial.

"I'm far from it."

"Not to me," Regina insists, her heart swelling painfully with the admission.

Emma smiles. It's more desolate than happy, and she pulls Regina in for a searing kiss before magicking them into Regina's bedroom.

And then Emma is attacking Regina with her mouth everywhere, seemingly all at once. Her neck, her shoulders, her clavicle, her breasts, her stomach, her thighs…the woman left no expanse of skin (somehow in their magical transportation, Regina's dress and undergarments had disappeared) untasted and unmarked.

Emma was possessing her, body and soul, leaving a trail of lovebites that Regina was all too happy to accept. She was writhing underneath the Savior, panting and chanting her name like a prayer. As Emma ascended from her trail up Regina's leg, her head at the apex of Regina's thighs, Regina stops her.

"My darling, I believe I have some business to attend to first," Regina purrs, pulling the blonde up to meet her lips. Regina's hands settle on Emma's waist, moving slowly over the garter belt and around the curve of Emma's ass. She squeezes appreciatively, earning a rolling moan from the blonde atop her.

Regina flips them over, kissing the blonde soundly before sliding lithely down Emma's body, her hands burning a trail in their wake. "Mmm," Regina hums appreciatively, fingers sliding down the length of the garter bands and toying with the clasps.

 _Look what Hook is missing._ Regina thinks victoriously. But the bitter taste of reality follows closely behind. Disappointment wells low in her stomach, but she refuses to let the blonde take any of her own mental anguish for a lack of desire.

She had already been rejected enough for one day.

Regina follows her fingers with her mouth, running her lips down the black elastic bands and using her tongue to toy with it. Emma groans, lifting her hips off the bed as the warmth of Regina's breath moves closer to her center.

"Regina." It's the single most wanton and seductive sound that the brunette has ever heard. It sends a jolt of need down between her slick thighs and a clench of want deep in her chest. Her fingers are shaking as they undo the clasps. She's never been so affected in her life. Not with Daniel, certainly not with Graham and not even with Robin.

Every shaky breath that she inhales fills her with Emma, muddying her mind and making her _need_ in a way that feels so unadulterated and so, so damaging.

She's pretty sure this is what heroin addicts feel like.

She swallows audibly as she helps Emma shimmy out of the belt first. She takes her time with the stockings, however, slowly trailing up and down the legs with her hands and then her lips and then her hands again, which finally roll them down.

On the way back up, her hands move up smooth calves and thighs that genuinely surprise her. For some reason, Regina had always imagined Emma wouldn't be too into the shaving aspect of personal hygiene.

Emma didn't seem like the kind of woman who had any reason to care. Again, reminding Regina that _she wasn't the reason_. It hurt deep in her chest and also in the spot down in her stomach like it did before.

"Emma?" Regina questions, her hands poised at the top of the woman's black lace thong. Canted hips and a soft sigh were her reply, so she decided not to say the _I love you_ and _Choose me_ that were queued behind the knot in her throat.

Regina almost cries when she sees Emma's legs parted, center glistening and hood straining for her.

 _Mine_. The word crackles, unbidden, at the forefront of Regina's mind. It spits like fire but at least it feels warm.

Her tongue moves slowly, charting out its new territory, careful not to miss a centimeter in its surveying. Up puffy outer lips, down mysterious inner ones. In the seeping slit that was dripping for her.

Gods, she tasted like joy.

Emma writhed, whimpering in desperation as her hips and hands pressed Regina further against her.

An aching moan ripped from her as Regina finally allowed her tongue to swirl upwards to the throbbing clit. Emma's fingers were wild in Regina's hair, her pants loud and her mouth chanting, chanting, chanting Regina's name.

The repeated syllables sung through the brunette, clinging onto the very atoms of her being as they singed their way through layers after layer.

"I want to be here with you," Regina says suddenly, moving up Emma's body and holding Emma close to her while her hand finds purchase on the coarse blonde curls below. Her index finger slides through impossibly slick folds before circling around the engorged clit.

Regina's lips find Emma's and they _possess_. Emma clings to her, wrapping tighter as her pleasure spirals further up. The blonde is quivering, coiled around her and teetering on the precipice of release.

"I want you to come for me, Emma. Come for me," Regina demands. Pleads.

And with that, Emma cries out, shuddering as shockwave after shockwave assaults her body.

"Holy shit," Emma laughs breathlessly as euphoria courses through her. Instinctively, she curls into the older brunette, the light pants of her breath hitting Regina's shoulder. "Wow."

Regina smiles down at her, heart swelling and eyes watering with her own sort of release.

"Regina?" Emma asks, feeling wetness hit her cheek. But Regina pulls her in for another searing kiss, and Emma doesn't have time to ask Regina _why_ before the brunette's hands are all over her again.

"Emma," Regina mumbles between their kisses. It's _Emma_ over and over again. Emma falling from her mouth. Emma sliding down her chest. Emma laving at her breasts and sliding deep inside her—the only place she hadn't claimed already. Heart, mind; body, soul. She was Emma's and Emma was falling all around her…

They fell asleep tangled in one another, slick around each others' thighs. Regina kissed her softly everywhere she could reach. Called her 'my darling' again and whispered a laden _I love you_ once the blonde was finally asleep.

She was gone in the morning. At breakfast with Hook at Granny's before nine. Regina wore her marks from the night before with as much pain as she did pride, sitting primly on the swiveling barstool nursing her heart and a black coffee.

Regina wasn't sure what she expected. But when Emma and Hook walked out of the establishment holding hands and not sparing the Mayor a glance, Regina felt the porcelain mug in her hands shatter.

It was a metaphor for her heart.

The days passed and Regina's purgatory and brief glimpse of heaven descended quickly into a hellishness she would have never wished upon her worst enemies. Surely the fire-room of the sleeping curse were no match for the looks of disgust, the clipped words of icy indifference, the deliberate flaunting of the other lover, from her unrequited love.

There were also the looks of pity. From Snow. From Ruby. From the fucking angry dwarf, of all creatures.

The argument she happened upon between Emma and Charming.

 _"She doesn't deserve that, Emma! Do you see what you're doing to her?"_

Regina knew at this point she was near delusional, so she was sure she was imagining those blessed, occasional looks of sadness—dare she say longing—the blonde would occasionally let slip her way.

The blonde stopped coming over whenever she had one of her many mishaps with the pirate. She stopped coming over completely, actually. Henry didn't say a word to her about it like she expected. Instead, he became more doting. He made sure she ate, took her for rides deep into the forest, sat with her in the study late into the night not necessarily talking. Just existing close to her. It was—

She couldn't explain it. She also couldn't bring herself to question it. It was far too precious.

The only thing holding her together.

The marks fade too quickly from her body, and she notes the progress of each and every one of the dozens of them. Emma fades away, too, the edges going first and leaving a sickly yellow reminder of what _was_.

"Have you seen your mother lately?" Regina asks casually.

"I see her all the time," Henry answers cheekily, nudging Regina with his shoulder and gracing her with a charming smile. He was so tall now. His shoulder was more of a mid-bicep.

"Your other mother." Regina returns his smile because it's coming from him, but it fades so quickly because they're talking about _her_.

"No," Henry answers simply.

"You should."

"She should see _us_ ," Henry answers bitterly, with a strength that made her heart weep and blossom with love for her son. He squeezes her hand for emphasis. For reassurance.

The bruises are gone, and Regina longs for the traces of her one night of love with the blonde Sheriff. She's a badge and a gun and a cruiser, but she's not a mother and she's not a daughter and she's no longer the sun. Just a yellowed bruise that's rapidly paling into skin that's not at all healed.

The years fall like stones that settle and round with the steady flow of time. Hook finally sets sail for 'bluer water' and the word _maybe_ is a muffled echo that is so garbled, Regina isn't sure she's even heard it right.

 _Maybe_.


End file.
